By Administrator in Bulletin

Aug 29, 2017 00:00

Steward as used in the New Testament (translated from the Greek word oikonomos ) means an administrator, a caretaker, a custodian and a manager. This word refers to a person who is a faithful manager, overseer and caretaker over his or her own or others’ property and interests. So what does that say about our relationship to the owner and the stuff entrusted to us?

I. He is the owner, I am the manager:

Everything I have today comes from God. It is His; I own nothing. David said that “the world and everything in it” belongs to God (Psalm 89:11). I am not the owner of the things in my life; as a steward, I am merely the manager.

II. As a manager I have a divine responsibility:

If God is the owner, then I am the manager whom He has trusted with His property. I must learn to think, therefore, like His manager. A manager oversees the owner’s assets for the owner’s benefit. A manager carries no sense of entitlement to the assets he or she manages. The job of a manager is to find out what the owner wants done with His assets and then to carry out His will. This understanding affects how we give.

A. Give abundantly:

King David, then the most powerful man on earth, understood this owner-manager relationship. After receiving a tremendous offering, David responded to God... 1 Chron 29:14

B. Give sacrificially:

In 2 Corinthians 8, Paul tells of Macedonian Christians and their sacrificial giving. Paul testifies here of the Macedonian believers... 2 Cor 8:1-5

C. Give joyfully:

Have you ever wondered why the Bible says that “God loves a cheerful giver?” (2 Corinthians9:7). Joyful giving is a sign that the givers understand the owner-manager relationship. Cheerful giving can only come from a heart set on things above, not on earthly things (see Colossians 3:1). God loves a cheerful giver because such givers are investing in heaven, which reaps eternal dividends. When the tabernacle was being built in the Old Testament, people got so caught up in the joy of their heavenly investments that they had to be ‘restrained’ from giving more. Exodus 36:4-7

III. The manager will give an accounting:

I am held accountable to God because He, as the Owner, has expectations of the manager. The Owner has complete right to a full disclosure of what’s been done with His property. Our managing His property will undergo a job performance evaluation.(Read Romans 14:10-12.)Each will give a personal account to God. God will want to know what we have done with the possessions He has entrusted into our care. Here are a few areas of inspection.

A. Ourselves:

The Owner will check how devoted we have been to Him. That’s why Paul wrote in Romans 12:1, Paul says a proper and spiritual act of worship is to give yourself fully to your Owner to be used as His servant.

B. Our possessions:

He will also hold me accountable for what I’ve done with the things He has entrusted to me (Matt. 25:14-30). C. Our time: Look at Ephesians 5:15-17. We will be held accountable for how we used each “day the Lord has made” and given to us (see also Ps. 118:24 and 74:16). D. Our abilities: The owner will examine what we have done with the gifts and abilities He has granted us, (Read 1 Pet. 4:10). God has entrusted to my management time, possessions, abilities, and even my very being. All are to be used for His honor. I will be accountable for all these things and how I used them.